This week, Works for me Wednesday is working backwards and we are to ask a question of our readers. Here is mine:
What veggies/fruits/herbs do you grow in your garden and how do you preserve them?
We're getting ready to put in a garden (I'll explain the strange timing at another time) and I have some ideas of what I want to grow, but I'm looking for new ideas to get my thinking 'out of the box'.
Lay it on me, internets! :o)
4 comments:
One of my favorite flowers to grow from seed: nasturtiums. They're colorful; the seeds are large, therefore easy to plant; they come in short or tall (gangly) varieties; and they're actually edible on salads.
I LOVE growing sage, thyme, and chives. But leave room around these herbs, because they'll grow a lot from year to year. Also, if you use sage in little posies around the house, it scents your bouquets nicely, but also really causes the plant to flourish. I thought I'd overdone how much I harvested one year, but the plant loved it and came back double the size.
OH - the thing I've wanted to grow but haven't is dill. So easy, and sooo much cheaper than getting fresh dill at the store.
Watch out: bunnies LOVE broccoli and other veggies, so you may want to grow things in raised beds, or surround them somehow with fencing.
Good luck!
Grow what your family eats.
I grew peas, beans, corn, potatoes, pickles, onions, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, zucchini, y. squash, broc., cauliflower, carrots, lettuce, radishes & dill. We did pretty good. I am planning for next yr already.
Plant beans, pickles, viney stuff around your corn. The raccoons don't like the prickly vines so they won't go after it. Or you can do what we did. Turn a radio on.
Are you planting now? Or getting ready to plant in the spring?
Definitely grow the things your family eats. Tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onions, green beans, peppers, potatoes and garlic are all fairly easy to grow. As far as preservation...
Tomatoes are canned - spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, ketchup, puree, diced etc. If you pick green tomatoes towards the end of your harvest time, they can be stored in a box with newspaper for a number of weeks. You just have to be careful to take the ripe ones out right away.
Cucumbers are chopped up and turned into pickles.
Carrots are canned although you could probably freeze some.
Onions, garlic and potatoes are stored in a cool, dry place. Canning potatoes is also great - you can take them out of the jar, heat 'em, mash 'em and have "instant" mashed potatoes (no need to wait for the water to boil, potatoes to cook etc.)
Beans can be canned or frozen. The same is true of corn.
A lot of recipe books have directions on how to store vegetables. I learned how to blanch and freeze beans from my Better Homes and Garden cook book.
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